


dyeing her petals red

by strikethesun



Series: The Anne Neville Cycle [3]
Category: 15th Century CE RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anti-canon, Dysfunctional Family, F/M, Self-Indulgent, Teenagers Acting Like Teenagers, battle of barnet AU, but it BECOMES a functional one, positive in-law relationships, readeption success, traumatized adults acting like traumatized adults, warwick is alive but i hate him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:33:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24310624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strikethesun/pseuds/strikethesun
Summary: a rebuke to sharon kay penman, philippa gregory, the historical record, and many others; or, anne loves & succeeds with her first set of in-laws.
Relationships: Edward of Lancaster | Prince of Wales/Anne Neville Queen of England, Henry VI/Marguerite d'Anjou | Henry VI/Margaret of Anjou
Series: The Anne Neville Cycle [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1750822
Kudos: 9





	dyeing her petals red

**Author's Note:**

> this emerged from my frustration with the consistent portrayal of margaret of anjou as a hellish mother-in-law, particularly when there's such an interesting parallel to be made between her and anne! i figured a barnet AU would give them the most time to spend with each other, even if it also means that, unfortunately, the earl of warwick is still alive. also i'm skeptical that edward of lancaster was a) not henry vi's son and b) particularly bloodthirsty and cruel, and i'm also skeptical that anne neville was a) pining for her dad's cousin dickon and b) a timid, shrinking daddy's girl, so i tried to synthesize those ideas with a healthy dose of Awkward Adolescence, too. also i just wanted to give henry and margaret SOME amount of happiness, for once

“...as she looked upon the woman writhing upon the rush-strewn floor, racked by the dry sobs of a grief forever beyond the balm of tears, Anne thought this was but one more reason to hate them, that they’d made her so much like them, able to take pleasure in the death of another being, to be an uncaring witness to this rending of a woman’s soul.” sharon kay penman _, the sunne in splendour._

anne saw her new family as a splintered mirror, each piece of glass reflecting a different part of her that she hadn’t known was there until meeting them. 

admittedly, much like a splintered mirror, her first reaction to her new family was one of disappointment tinged with caution not to step on any sharp pieces. however, it didn’t take too long to see through each of their fronts: the “new” king was anything but new, having famously regained his wits only months before she was born, and the stories she had grown up with about his lunatic madness quickly melted in a blaze of disarming smiles and close, welcoming hugs. even the imposing marguerite, the witch who had haunted her and isabel’s nightmares from their first cradles, defrosted as soon as she truly looked at anne for the first time and saw a young, scared girl who was still unsteady on her feet from a choppy channel crossing. 

and then there was edward, or edouard, in marguerite’s loving mother tongue, or ned, as anne came to know her husband. there had been another ned, once, but not for her— her father, who stood as tall as that dreadful tower that poor henry sometimes still imagined himself to be residing in, who never wore armor that he couldn’t make out his own reflection in, who shattered into a million pieces in anne’s mind in the exact moment in which he saw isabel, covered in her own girlish blood, a limp baby boy wrenched from her arms slick with seawater, and then turned away without an explanation or even a quick embrace— her father had been allowed to call king edward _ned,_ alongside the king’s young brothers. the idea had never even occurred to anne, the man was “the king” in her mind before all else.

but this ned was for her. she hadn’t wanted him, at first— memories of isabel’s whispers about an evil little prince whose father could have been any lord in the great isle pressed at the back of her mind, right alongside george and richard recounting stories of his gleeful involvement in some execution. the older, wiser anne that had taken that eavesdropping girl’s place wished she could walk back into middleham and ask those boys why it wasn’t considered disturbing at all when they openly invented scenarios in which “the french bitch” was burned at the stake, or drawn and quartered, or having her head paraded around on a pike. 

however, ned of lancaster opened up to anne in a very similar way to her own blooming— slowly, always checking to make sure there was no danger, having learned far too early in life to never get one’s hopes up or ever let one’s guard down. consummation had terrified them both, and they forged a bond in that terror. where ned had been building up resentment towards the world for years, anne’s adolescent rebellion had only begun with the horror that was isabel’s nautical childbirth, the moment when it first occurred to her that her father was _wrong_ sometimes and that everything she had been primed for— marriage, childbirth, the raising of a family— was dependant on so many things outside of her control that it seemed more like a fancy prison than anything else.

“a fancy prison, anne?” ned twirled a piece of anne’s auburn hair around his finger as they lay in bed beside each other, mostly spent. “like the one your father has kept my father in for years?”

a comment like this would have once prompted a tearful defense, but it didn’t even hit the bottom of her stomach: it found new depths, sinking further and further down until she couldn’t hear its echo. “my father is an absolute bastard, ned. he’ll be apologizing to us the rest of his days,” and that was the first time that anne had said _us,_ meaning herself, ned, marguerite, and even the prisoner himself whom she had never laid eyes on before.

from that exchange on, anne increasingly saw that foursome as a unit. it filled the hole in her left by that realization of her father’s ultimate ambition, her mother’s inability to prepare her and isabel for this new world they had awoken into, and even isabel’s maturation into a wife and almost-mother (for the loss of her child only pulled her further apart from anne, as the only way she could find to cope was to focus on the hope that more children would come at any moment). what now stood around anne was a young man who tried every day to know her just a little better, a woman who had survived the worst the world had to throw at the fairer sex, and a shadow of a man, once ominous, now promising, as ned described his gentleness and capacity to forgive.

“i don’t mean it as a positive. if he had been stronger, my mother would have never had to do...well, _everything._ ” ned sighed, but continued playing with anne’s hair. “i think you’ll like him nonetheless.”

“why, because i’m just a silly girl?”

ned frowned. “obviously not. you’re your father’s daughter,” and when she cringed, he added, “in all of the good ways, none of the bad ones. you’re both bold enough to drag us back to england.”

“and if when i meet your father, i tell you that you’re his son, how would that make you feel?”

ned stifled a laugh. “overwhelmingly relieved, considering that every neville has been saying the opposite since before you were born.” 

when anne finally did curtsey before that long-awaited face, it was obvious to her that it was the precursor to ned’s fine features, the perfect amount of softness to balance out marguerite’s pinched angles, but a fundamental softness had been roughened by years of concern and confusion and forgoing meals in order to pray longer, harder, without stumbling this time, in case it pleased the lord just enough to let him see his wife and son again. it had worked, and for this he wore a perpetual grin that was new to him, and the fact that he had a new daughter to boot was only further evidence of the lord’s appeasement.

and as ned hadn’t realized how much he longed for a wife, and marguerite a daughter, someone who could share in her heavily-gendered pain, until they were actually confronted with having one, henry hadn’t realized how much he longed for a daughter, too. while ned not-too-subtly avoided henry’s presence, still chewing on the sense that all of the hardships he’d faced were ultimately his father’s fault, anne had no grudges and expected nothing from him, which was thoroughly refreshing for someone who had only recently learned what it was like to _not_ be king. meanwhile, what anne longed for was a father who would hold her gently even if she was like isabel, covered in blood and seawater and hoarse from screaming, and henry could provide this. after an initial period of hesitation not helped by the fact that, as ned had said back in france, her father _had_ been keeping him prisoner for some time, and the whispers back then too of henry’s increasingly detached mental state turned out to be mostly accurate, anne began to understand her new father’s eccentricities and where marguerite soon became impatient with his random tears and demands to know where he was, anne would sit with him and hold his hand until it brought him back to reality. henry was the first grown man to look at anne as though she were a real person capable of intelligent thought. anne was the only person whose soothing words had no underlying expectation of payback.

when marguerite watched this phenomenon from half a room away, her back against some ornately-carved window, her arms crossed and head slightly lowered, she thought she was looking in a mirror, but one hopelessly lagging decades behind. her henry hadn’t always been like _that,_ of course, but the greying and trembling man he had become had always been present, just hidden under layers of youth and false confidence. but then there was anne— young enough and confident enough to fight the sisyphean battle of keeping henry present, not yet tired and jaded like marguerite, whose capacity to cradle anyone had been extinguished once her own son grew too heavy to hold. anne, who had begun her womanhood with a tumultuous voyage, married off to the son of someone she had heard vicious stories of her entire life. _funny, that_.

“anne,” she began as the younger woman walked back towards her, leaving henry to his prayers, “i haven’t properly thanked you yet. i think your bond with my husband is starting to have its effect on ned.” marguerite smiled sadly. “it’s hard to explain to a boy of his age that his father’s _trying,_ has always tried so hard to be good.” as they turned a corner, aiming for the solar they expected to find ned in, marguerite raised her voice above the hushed tones she had been speaking in near henry and his men. “and i’m sorry that i can’t be what he needs someone to be for him right now. both henry and ned, i’m just…” she stopped before the door. “i’m so tired, anne.”

anne, growing bolder by the day, squeezed the queen’s arm and looked straight on at her, both women being naturally small. “don’t worry, mother. no one could ever doubt your love for them, after everything you’ve sacrificed.”

and with that, marguerite’s dam burst, a lifetime’s worth of carefully-placed armor pierced through by a simple, predictable comment from the daughter of a man who had helped necessitate said armor. she sobbed, and anne rubbed her back, marvelling at being a source of comfort for both the king and queen in a matter of minutes. 

ned heard, because of _course_ he did, and left his solar to embrace a mother who had never cried in front of him, not even when they were together as the news of henry’s imprisonment arrived. reluctantly, anne managed to slip away from this hug unnoticed.

she returned only a moment later, her father-in-law in tow. at hearing the unfamiliar yet unmistakable sound of marguerite’s cries, he let go of anne’s hand and rushed to her, his perfect model of strength, and only then noticed that their boy was crying too, just silently. at seeing his father, ned flashed a look of frustration towards anne, but then henry’s arms came around them both, and then all three looked back at anne with a silent, unified request, and anne lost track of time in the sobbing and pressing and folding in on one another.

eventually, anne stepped back, looking at the polished mirror on the wall, more whole than it had ever been, and cheekily assessed her handiwork. her father still haunted those halls, of course, but there was increasingly less room for him, until he was little more than a shadow, crying phantom tears at her coronation, standing beside his grandchildren, princes and princesses who would scarcely remember him at all.


End file.
